Vacheron Constantin Pays Homage to History With 3 New Takes on a 100-Year-Old Style
Welcome to Dialed In, Esquire's column bringing you horological happenings and the most essential news from the watch world since March 2020. This week, we're working with the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie as Media Partner of Watches and Wonders Geneva. Visit Watches and Wonders' website for news and video panels daily, and keep checking back here for all the updates you need to know about.
For vintage quirkiness and a hefty dollop of old-school charm, you can’t go wrong with Vacheron Constantin’s Historiques American 1921 watch line. As the name suggests, this year is the centenary of this singular watch with its equally singular history. According to company legend, the watch was created in response to an American customer with a big thing for motoring who needed a watch he could read while gripping the steering wheel of his motor car.
At the time, both wristwatches and the motorcar were relatively new. In America especially the auto industry was expanding exponentially. This set the watchmaker thinking, and a small number of watches were made—legend says less than 25—first with the movement jinked to the left and later to the right, presumably to suit whichever wrist a customer wore his watch. One early customer, the American preacher, Samuel Parkes-Cadman, who pioneered the use of radio to reach his audiences, owned two, and applying the uniquely angled watch to his lectern, was able to discreetly track time while preaching. One of his watches is in the Vacheron Constantin heritage collection.
In 2008, the brand resurrected the American 1921 in a 40mm case, adding a 36.5mm one in 2017. Often, such idiosyncratic ideas are popular in the market but limited in longevity. The American 1921 proved to be of more lasting stuff, and it now forms the backbone of the Historiques collection, a way for the oldest watchmaker in the business to revive some of its past glories for the modern collector market.
This week the brand released three new versions, two in white gold in 40mm and 36.5mm and one that pulls out all the luxury stops in sand-blasted platinum and limited to 100 pieces. The modern American 1921 is faithful in style and looks to the century-old original, with the distinctively pre-Art Deco cushion shape (a hot trend in the 1920s). It uses a modern calibre 4400AS hand-wound movement first used in the 2008 version and, like the original, is finished with a small seconds dial at 3 o’clock.
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